Bergen: A second Supervised Injection site in Norway

The city's first and Norway's second drug injection is ready to use. Injection room will be offered to people who use heroin on a risky and harmful manner.

Who can use the injection room?

Injection room will be an important service to people using heroin on a risky and harmful manner. Users of injection room are people with long-term heroin addiction and harmful injection practices that are at least 18 years. Current laws and regulations only allow injection of heroin injection room.

Here, health and social care personnel provide users with general advice on injection practices, hygiene and self-care to prevent infection and reduce the risk of injury. Each user will get clean equipment for injecting. Personale vil observere bruker under og etter injisering og gi tilbud om individuell helsehjelp som sårstell. Staff will observe use during and after the injection and make an offer to individual health care as wound care.

It should also be offered counseling and information on health and care services or social services if the user desires. The purpose is to establish contact between the individual user and the support system aimed at multidisciplinary follow-up and treatment.

Project Injection

Only a year ago the City Council approved the establishment of injecting rooms in Bergen.

In the City Government's political platform states:

"The council needs to do more to help those who daily live with a substance abuse. Harm reduction is an attempt to limit the damage drug use brings with it, without the requirement that the use must cease."

There was a working group to establish an injection consisting of the following:

"The working group will report on space requirements in line with laws and regulations that safeguard features and special considerations to both staff and users. The group will consider the possibility to establish an injection in the same building as Strax-house but also whether other city-center locations in Bergen can be topical . the group will report an operating concept for the injection room, which will decide opening hours, staffing, expertise, an officer on duty, security and community action. It shall be prepared professional profile for the project. the group will submit a draft budget for the measure. "

Want a user rooms

It has been an ongoing Switch campaign for several years to get intravenous drug users to smoke heroin instead of injecting. Det reduserer overdosedødsfall. It reduces overdose deaths. Det gjør at brukerne unngår infeksjoner, blodsmitte, stygge sår og ødelagte blodårer. It allows users to avoid infections, blood infection, ugly wounds and broken blood vessels. Det er viktig at dette holdningsskapende arbeidet blant rusavhengige fortsetter og tas inn i brukerrom. It is important that this awareness-raising work among addicts continue and be included in user.

Det er avsatt areal i sprøyterommet som ved en lov og forskriftsendring kan tilrettelegges for røyking. There is an allocated space in the injection which by law and regulation changes can be made for smoking. For at tiltaket skal omfatte flere personer arbeides det for å endre lovgivningen slik at det åpnes for andre inntaksmåter enn bare injisering og andre stoffer enn bare heroin. For the measure to include several people working to change the legislation so that it is opened for the second intake ways than just injecting and other substances than just heroin.

The injection room is adjacent to Strax-house. Injection room has input and output via a green walkway on the south side of the building toward Puddefjord Bridge from Michael Krohn street. The injection room is located on the same floor and is connected with the day center at Strax-house.

Budget 2017: 18.3 million.

Owner: City of Bergen, BSBI, Etat Mental Health and rustjenester and Strax-house.